Tag Archives: student loans

College debt has reached record levels. It almost tripled between 2004 and 2012, and is approaching $1 trillion. Student debt is now the second largest form of consumer debt, behind home mortgages and well ahead of credit card and auto debt. People need a college degree to compete in today’s high-tech job market. At the same time, college tuition has soared over the past decade while median family income has decreased. People need college degrees in order to compete, but …

America’s student loan bills have outgrown its credit card bills, and the debt relief industry is clamoring for the business of student borrowers. But according to a report from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), some companies are ripping off those borrowers by charging hefty fees for programs the federal government offers for free. The NCLC used a secret shopper to investigate 10 agencies that advertised student loan debt relief. The investigation found numerous problems with the industry, including the …

Student loan debt could be the source of our country’s next financial crisis. There are more than 37 million student loan borrowers with outstanding debt totaling $1 trillion. Experts say 30 percent of that won’t be repaid or forgiven. Lawyers.com videojournalist Amber Statler-Matthews reports that wiping out student loans through bankruptcy is not easy. Congress is now considering legislation for forgiving only private student loans through bankruptcy. Private student loan debt means it is held by private banks, not …

A for-profit college must pay $13 million for pulling a bait-and-switch on a single mother who took out $27,000 in student loans for the wrong degree then was told she had to take out another $10,000 for the correct degree. In 2009, Jennifer Kerr, a 42-year old single mother of two children, decided to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse after she saw a TV ad for Vatterott College and visited the Kansas City campus of the Missouri-based for-profit …

After attempts to pay back the student loans that financed his law degree pushed him into bankruptcy, an Oregon man who struggled to become a lawyer but never did will have at least some of those loans forgiven, according the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Disagreement over Good Faith By the end of the 1990s, Michael Hedlund had borrowed $85,000 in student loans in order to attend law school, according to the appellate court’s May 22 opinion. He …